So recently I heard that Phil died. You didn’t know Phil, but I did. He was a pretender.

Phil came to church and pretended to be interested in order to get his wife to be a little friendlier with him. The only time Phil prayed was when the Pastor came to visit. He’d have the whole family hold hands at the table and pray together. Occasionally Phil would round up the clan and tell the he wanted them to be in church every Sunday. That lasted about a week. I say that Phil was a pretender because he was. Even those times he’d spend Sunday morning in church, Phil spent Saturday evening getting drunk. Phil had his picture in the paper for dealing drugs. And frequently, Phil’s wife would talk about his cheating and trashing the house if she objected.

So when Phil died and I read his obituary, I wanted to throw up. It said that Phil had led a life of great faith in God, that he loved God and served Him. I have to say that when I read things like that, it feeds something within me that is not healthy. It feeds my cynicism.

I struggle with cynicism. I’m not just a pessimist. A pessimist has a tendency to always expect the worst. Not just a skeptic. A skeptic has trouble believing anything good. I struggle with cynicism.

A cynic believes all people are motivated by selfishness. The outlook of a cynic is generally scornful and negative. Even if someone comes to faith in Christ and has changed, the cynic still struggles to believe it’s real. It’s not a good thing to be a cynic.

This podcast addresses the pitfall of cynicism and gives you some ladder rungs to climb to break free.

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